GRASS FIRES AS A CAUSE OF MIGRATION. 59 



of certain districts by their animal inhabitants, and 

 their assemblage in herds in the unburnt tracts. 



The principal causes which impel the formation of 

 the herds and their subsequent migratory wanderings 

 having been duly related, we shall now proceed 

 to recount descriptions of some of these great collections 

 of game animals collected from diiferent works of 

 travel, which seem to furnish good historical examples 

 of these grand panoramas of wild life as seen in times 

 gone by, but still of comparatively recent date. 



This is a subject upon which, from a sportsman's 

 point of view, it is perhaps permissible to look back with 

 enthusiasm, which is however not unmingled with regret, 

 because for the most part these noble hunting scenes 

 are gone never to return. Not at all, however, do we 

 desire to regard them in the savage spirit of the mere 

 slaughterer of hosts of harmless and beautiful creatures, 

 with which the beneficence of the Creator had origin- 

 ally peopled and adorned the pathless wilderness: but 

 rather to record them in unfeigned admiration of these 

 grand scenes of wild life, which it has been the privi- 

 lege of but few to witness, and which have now 

 become for posterity a matter of historic interest only. 

 Our view of this matter is that it would be a pity to 

 let these things pass into oblivion, and therefore we 

 have determined to collect together these narratives as 

 memorials of such events most of which, it will be 

 observed, have occurred during the lifetime of persons 

 yet living upon the earth. 



The following describes the aspect of the great game 

 country in South Africa, during a single day's march 

 made some 60 years ago, as recorded by Mr. Charles 

 Darwin in his "Naturalist's Voyage." 





